Chapter One: The Investigative Esper
Arata stared up at the silver colored building that was the private investigator group GALE's headquarters and watched how its walls reflected the early mornings sunlight. Today Arata didn't particularly mind how the sun was blinding him as a result even though it was normally a nuisance. It was a peaceful beautiful morning and he was eager to get back to his friends and fellow GALE members inside. Arata took a sip of the espresso that was in his hand. He had a rough night as he was up all night investigating and catching the culprit. The latter of which was a breeze as one would expect from the great Slyph. It took less than 5 minutes to apprehend him and another five to leave him at the doorstep of Judgement. Arata let out a sound that sounded like a mix between a yawn and a sigh and entered his building. He quietly walked up the clean staircase to reach the wooden door at the top, which had GALE's insignia on it: a drawing of a gust of wind, which was made by Luna. Not pausing to give the drawing he had seen a thousand times any notice he silently opened the door to be greeted by a peaceful scene. In the room was three high schoolers partaking in quiet activates. The silver haired Luna was curled up in a corner with a book, which made her look even more like a child than she already does. The black haired four eyes Genki, leader of GALE and, was playing chess with the slender red haired girl who went by the name Emiko and who, unlike Luna, actually looked her age. Even though Arata barely made a noise Genki immediately noticed him as expected of a level 4 esper with the ability to sense AIM fields. "Welcome back Arata. How was the job? Who was the culprit," Genki asked without looking up from the board. No one else responded. Luna, a level 3 esper with ability to manipulate AIM fields to enhance or deactivate powers to an extent, didn't budge because of how engrossed in her book she was. Emiko didn't greet Arata probably because like him she wasn't in the mood to get into a fight this early in the morning. "It was ok. I could have really used the help with the investigating because I would like to have gotten some sleep. As for the culprit, he was a level 3 esper who could control sound. He used his ability to emit low frequency sound as a way to cause anxiety and scare people away," Arata responded before taking another sip of espresso and walked to the couch at the back of the room close to Luna who acknowledged his presence with only the quickest of glances. Emiko cursed under her breath in response to Arata's words and slid coins across the table to Genki who happily took them and moved a piece on the board. Clearly a bet was made about the culprit and clearly Emiko lost. "Check," Genki said with amusement. Arata closed his eyes and paid attention to almost therapeutic sounds of Luna rhythmically turning the page and of chess pieces being moved and taken off the board. Eventually the inevitable happened and Genki proclaimed, "Checkmate." much to Emiko's frustration. "Why are you so frustrated Ms. Hothead. You act like this is a surprise," Arata said with a smile. "Shut up Mr. Airhead, I only accepted his challenge because of how much he was complaining about being destroyed by Luna over and over," Emiko retorted. At Emiko's words a small quiet laugh escaped Luna's lips, which caused Arata's smile to grow. Genki visibly flinched at Luna's soft laugh as though he was punched. Her tiny laugh caused countless memories of being humiliated by her to surface. "Ok, listen! Sometimes I want to win! It is annoying losing over and over again!" Genki complained loudly. He slammed his hands against the table and quickly stood up. Luna's laughter grew at Genki's reaction and she shoved her face in her book in a futile attempt to stifle her laughter and hide her wide smile. When that didn't work she said in-between her fits of laughter, "I need a drink of water." and ran out of the room via the back door. "I know I won, but it definitely feels like I just lost," Genki grumbled. "You don't even need to be playing against her to loose to her," Arata commented. "Alright, enough. We have work to do now that Arata's back," Genki said. "He just wants to avoid the pain. Plus, shouldn't we wait for Luna to return," Emiko said to which Arata responded with a nod of agreement. "No, she already knows. So if you guys don't have any other smart remarks I would like to get started," Genki said. Arata and Emiko didn't. Satisfied, Genki walked to his desk that sat in front of the room like a teacher's desk would. "This request came directly from Chairman of the Board of Directors," Genki began. Neither Arata nor Emiko needed to ask what that meant. The only reason why he would ask GALE over Anti-Skill, Judgment, or anyone else working under him is because of Arata and his knowledge of the magical world and how he has told the other members of GALE everything he knows making them the perfect group when it comes to problems of a magical nature. "I can't remember the last time he requested us directly. What did he request of us?" Arata asked. "A child just arrived at Academy City. We are to find her and look after her," Genki said. Arata stood up and began walking toward the door all the while saying, "Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. This has trouble written all over it. I can see nothing, but endless trouble if we take this job. Magical jobs are never this easy." "This wasn't a request. It was an order," Genki said. This made the level 5 esper stop walking and return to his spot on the couch. "Did he at least tell us what is up with this ordinary girl," Arata said while making air quotes when he said the word ordinary. Genki sat down before speaking. "She has certainly been through a lot according to the Chairman. Apparently she only came to Academy City because she wants to lead a peaceful life. She is the product of an extremely inhumane ritual done by a group of magicians. They tempted to fuse her with a supernatural creature to give her its power and make her their very own living weapon. This is why the job is so important. The chairman fears she is a ticking time bomb. He is afraid that at any moment she could revert to her true form and destroy the city," Genki said somberly. A moment of silence followed and in that moment Luna quietly walked in and sat down on the couch next to Arata. "So," Emiko said at last. "How are we supposed to find her?" Genki slid open a drawer in his desk and took out a remote. He pointed it at a projector that hung above Arata and Luna's head and pressed a button as he was doing so Arata summoned a gust of wind to switch off the lights. The projector then displayed a map of Academy City with a picture of a young red haired girl on the bottom left hand corner forcing GALE's leader to sit down and move to the side so his team can have a better view of the map. "The chairman said she flew in last night that means the first place she must have been was district 23. Assuming she doesn't have any means of traveling quickly such as flight or enhanced speed a girl her size couldn't have gotten far. Genki and I will search there. Arata and Emiko you should search the surrounding districts since you guys can cover more ground than we can because of your powers. Districts 10, 22, 18, 5, 6, and 12 should be as far as you go. If she does have powers that allow her to cover a lot of ground they are likely not very developed judging by her age so I doubt she can go past there. If none of us can find her in 10 hours, which would be at 4 pm we will meet at our school and think about expanding our search," Genki said. The group nodded and no one protested or questioned the plan. Everyone trusted Genki and his skill as a leader, tactician, and investigator. Thirty minutes later, time which was given to Arata to finish his drink and relax, all members of team GALE stood outside their headquarters. "Hey, Luna. Enhance my esper power so I can fly," Emiko asked. As a level 4 Pyromaster Emiko could release streams of fire from her feet and hands to lift herself off the ground, but she didn't have the power to fly. Luna looked to Genki for his opinion. "Of course, go ahead Luna. She will need it. .5 should be enough," Genki said. Using Luna's AIM Controller to enhance an esper power had a lot of risks. Espers cannot control their abilities if they are enhanced by a full level or more from Luna's ability and doing so can in fact cause a great deal of bodily harm. It took Emiko years of training to be able to tolerate a mere .8 enhancement, which luckily this mission didn't call for. Luna walked toward Genki who was leaning against the wall of their headquarters and sat in front of him facing away from him with her eyes closed. Emiko followed the silver haired girl and placed herself on the ground in front Luna cross-legged and facing her. "Ready Luna and Emiko," Genki said. Both nodded. Arata watched silently as Genki closed his eyes and activated his esper power allowing him to detect AIM fields. He zeroed onto Emiko's until only her's existed in his mind, which took only a few moments. He then placed his hand on the back of Luna's head and used the other half of his esper power to transmit to Luna what he is sensing. Now being able to sense Emiko's AIM field Luna could able to manipulate it. She mentally "reached" out to it and used her power to manipulate Emiko's AIM field in a way that enhanced her esper power. ".1," Luna said after a quarter of a minute. With every sequential number Luna said her voice sounded more strained and exhausted. When she reached .5 Luna and Genki stopped using their ability. A wave of exhaustion flooded Luna causing her to collapse back against Genki's legs, which is why she sat there. She had hit her head more times than she could count because of the exhaustion that followed. Luna was completely and utterly exhausted. It took almost everything she had to enhance Emiko and to Arata it looked like she didn't have enough strength left to move, which was why it was fortunate Arata was taking Genki and Luna to district 23. The now level 4.5 pyromaster wrestled with her newfound power in an attempt to bring it under her control. The air around her was unbelievably hot, but returned to its normal temperature once Emiko brought her power under control. "I will wait for you in district 11 so come there once you have dropped those to off," Emiko said standing up. She clenched her fists and released a powerful stream of fire from her hands to achieve lift. Equally powerful streams of flames were released from her feet before Emiko sped off into the distance in the direction of district 11. "Never changes," Arata grumbled. With very little effort he manipulate the air around him to lift himself off the ground. He made an upward gesture with his hands and lifted the remaining to off the ground with his aero-telekinesis. "Don't go too fast," Luna wheezed. "I know. I know. I am not as fiery as she is," Arata responded with a smile. "Thank god. Don't know what we would do with two of her," came Luna's smart remark which made the two guys smile. Although they were making fun of Emiko it was all in playful fun. They all cared for her as a friend. With much more control and grace and in a less showy fashion, Arata began flying off in the direction of district 23 at a good pace while towing Genki and Luna along. After 30 minutes of flying at this pace the trio arrived at district 23. No one gave a single glance to Arata as he gently placed his close friends on the ground; they were used to Arata taking people from one location. "Hey, is the Air Taxi business open," asked a middle school student. "No, doing GALE business sorry," Arata responded before taking off toward district 11 at a slightly faster pace. Arata spent the next eight hours going from one district to another with Emiko looking for the girl until finally they reached district 12. Arata softly landed on the first roof he saw upon entering the district while Emiko nearly crashed landed next to him and panting out of breath. "My power boost has ran out so I will be searching on the ground. You should continue searching from the sky," Emiko said in between gasps of air. Category:Chapters Category:A Certain Scientific Gale Category:Chapter in Progress